Buyer buys 2 apartments for eye-popping US$149m

Source: Xinhua | 2017-11-22

HOME may be where the heart is, but in Hong Kong it comes at a record price — more than US$71 million for a single apartment.

A well-heeled buyer snapped up two adjacent mountain-top pads — each over 370 square meters — for an eye-watering combined price of US$149.1 million.

The smaller of the two properties closed at US$71.7 million, making it Asia’s most expensive apartment by area, at a whopping US$17,000 per square foot, according to Bloomberg News.

The price smashed the previous record paid for a place to sleep in Hong Kong’s red-hot property market, when a duplex unit on the island topped out at US$13,439 per square foot in September.

A month later an office building in downtown Hong Kong sold for a record US$5 billion.

In June a single parking space changed hands for US$664,200, part of a boom in commercial and residential property prices fuelled by an influx of money from wealthy Chinese mainland investors and developers.

The surging property market has become an issue as costs in one of the world’s most expensive cities continue to soar, forcing some small businesses to close due to sky-high rents while many residents cannot afford to buy or rent decent homes.